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Thursday, February 14, 2013

Tweet up a storm, save some lives

Alliance for Justice is a member of the Coalition for Sensible
Safeguards, a group that fights back against a big business war on
regulation which, as the CSS website puts it: “diminishes economic well-being, undermines
public health and safety, and allows special interests to escape accountability
for their actions.”

OSHA graphic

Today marks the sad anniversary
of a case in point. Two years ago today,
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration submitted a draft rule to
reduce exposure to silica dust from sand, which can lead to silicosis, a chronic, incurable, sometimes fatal lung
disease. Exposure to silica dust also increases the
risk of lung cancer and other diseases.

As with all such proposed
regulations, this one was submitted to the White House Office of Management and
Budget for review. That’s supposed to
take no more than 135 days. It’s now
been 731 days, with no action from OMB, although there have been nine closed-door meetings with
industry groups like the National Industrial Sand Association.

AFL-CIO President Richard
Trumka wrote about one casualty of silicosis at The Huffington Post:

Tom Ward was 13 when his
father came home from what would be his last day of work. Ward's father
"barely made it through the door, fell to the floor and, between tears,
said, 'I can't do it anymore.'"

Later that year, at age 39,
Ward's father suffocated to death -- the effect of silicosis. His work as a
sandblaster had exposed him to cancer-causing silica dust.